Philanthropist

by Larry Hill

  “My dear friends, and you too, Jason, thanks for coming. I truly despise having people watch me turn a year older.” In fact, except for number 76, during which he was a cognitive wasteland, somebody through love and/or guilt had thrown him a party every year of his life.

  “I'm sorry for not having you over last year, but had you come I probably wouldn't have recognized you unless I had just seen you on television. But I'm better thanks to the great care of more doctors and hospitals than I care to remember. But how can I forget? Bills are still coming in from doctors that say they saw me more than a year ago.”

  A few polite chuckles followed.

  “I'm going to tell you some things that I haven't said to anyone, not even my dearest lover, chef, driver, and bill payer...uh...Jennifer. A year and a half ago, I was involved in a terrible traffic accident. A young lady named Teresa was killed.”

  Art Schofield, with the help of the cane that he had been using since his knee replacement six months earlier, forced himself out of his chair and approached his client.

  “Please sit down, Art. I know what I'm doing here.” Art slinked back into his seat.

  “Yes, Teresa Spencer died and they say that I caused it. A two-year-old, now almost four, named Meagan, has no mother and Mr. Mark Spencer, from what I hear a fine gentleman, does not have his wife at his side. I say to you in all honesty that I do not remember the accident and from what I can put together, I did not know when it happened that I had done anything but brush somebody who had gotten out of her car in the middle of the street as I was going to a store to buy chips and dip. Am I legally guilty? I really don't know. I'll leave that up to a jury and to my criminal attorney, Irving Greenberg. The trial will start in about two months and I'm prepared to deal with any outcome.

  “But let me say to you, my closest friends on earth, that I am truly sorry for what I have done. I'm 77 today and who knows how many more years I have left. I am proud of what my life has been so far, at least until that horrible moment a year and a half ago. I want to be remembered as so much more than the man who took Meagan's mother away from her.

  “And now, please get back to the party. Anyone here like desert wines?” About four of the thirty-some guests raised their hands. “Glad to see there aren't more than that. I'm going to open my greatest bottle of wine, a '21 Chateau d'Yquem and I’d hate to have to split it thirty ways.” He sat down as another dozen hands went up.

  Thirty seconds later, Art Schofield sat on the arm of Fred's easy chair. “Can I have a minute of the birthday boy's time in private?”

  “Come on Art. The party's just warming up.”

  “It'llonly take a couple of minutes.”

  “OK. But just a couple of minutes. I don't want that Yquem finished before I get to try some.”

  “Maybe you ought to get a bit before we talk. And, pour me some too.”

  Phillip had accidentally bisected the 90-year-old cork in his attempt to open the valued vintage. As his father approached, he was in the process of forcing the sticking half into the bottle. “Stop!” said Fred, too late, as the bottom portion of the stopper, now made up of dozens of cork bits, fell into the cherished liquid.

  “Phil! Phil! What have you done? That bottle is worth four thousand bucks!” Phillip was speechless. His expression was like that of a nine-year-old who had been caught by his mother with shoplifted baseball cards.

  “Don't worry Fred,” said one of the early hand raisers, who obviously knew wine. “All you've got to do is filter it through a little bit of cheese cloth.”

  “Jennifer, bring me some cheese cloth!” he yelled across the room, above the heads of most of the guests.

  “What is cheese cloth?” she responded.

  “Goddamned if I know. What is cheese cloth?” he asked, directing the question to the guy who told him not to worry.

  “It's a loosely woven cotton cloth - all kitchens have it.”

  “It's a loosely woven cotton cloth. You gotta have it in the kitchen. Everybody does,” he yelled again.

  “You don't need to holler, honey,” Jen said calmly having slalomed her way through the crowd. “I don't have cheese cloth, as far as I know. When is the last time I made cheese? Never.”

  The wine guy spoke up again. “No problem if you don't have cheese cloth. You can use a coffee filter.”

  “I know damn well that you make coffee. Please get me a filter...now! And some kind of big bottle to decant it into.”

  “Simmer down, dear. It'll be all right.” She brought the filter and the filter holder and a large thermos, the closet thing she could find to a big bottle. The viscous nectar flowed slowly through the paper filter into the thermos, from which it was served in very small dollops. Phil breathed a large sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to be disowned.

  “That's magnificent!” said one of the guests, not immediately recognized by the honoree.

  “It’s awesome!” exclaimed Dr. Jameson’s youthful date. Even with that recommendation, Jameson didn’t taste.

  “You know, Fred, I don't usually like sweet wines, but this is pretty nice. Any idea where I can pick up a couple of bottles?” asked a rich man.

  “This is truly heavenly. Legendary. I've had the '57 and the '72, but nothing comes close to this. I am honored to be at the site of the opening,” said the man who recommended cheese cloth. A doyenne of something took a larger than average portion of the sauterne, tasted it, grimaced as if she had been force-fed a spoonful of Splenda and put it down on the coffee table, walking away from the glass, now containing some eighty dollars’ worth of the most costly wine anyone at the party had ever tasted or smelled. Fred pointed it out to Phillip the pourer who in turn ordered the shapely coed hired for the event to pick up the glass and put it in the refrigerator. Whatever she did in her policing gig, she was not to throw any white wine in dessert glasses down the sink.

  Schofield finally was fed up waiting in the easy chair with no one to talk to and hobbled over to the wine tasting venue. He asked Phillip for “Just a little bit. I'm driving.”

  “Sorry Art, it's all gone. I didn't get any either. Neither did Jennifer. I don't think she cared. Thank God that Dad got to taste it.”

  “Did he like it?”

  “You know, if you blindfolded him, I doubt he could tell the difference between d’Yquem and Cherry Coke, at least since the accident. I hate to say it, but our father has always been the ultimate wine snob. I don't think he knows the first thing about what's good and what's dreck. If you put Gallo into a Mouton Rothschild bottle and served him out of that bottle, he'd have an orgasm on the spot and if you did it the other way around, he'd vomit. The man's got tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of wine from all over the world. I hate to think what we will do with it when he dies. None of us cares much about wine - maybe Jason does - who knows what that's about - but I don't think either Robert or I drinks more than a glass or two a week, and that's usually cheap stuff.”

  “How do you think his thing with wine is now compared to before his surgery?”

  “Not any different. Nothing sophisticated then, nothing now. Better than it was when he was really out of it. He didn't seem to remember that he had a stash of great bottles.”

  “Thanks for the information, Phil. I've got to talk to your Dad about that speech of his.

  “I bet you do.”

  Art found Fred surrounded by guests waxing eloquently about the wonders of fine wine. He slipped his arm through the bend in Fred's and told him that he needed a minute of his time. They went upstairs into Jennifer's study.

  “How about that wine, Artie Boy?”

  “I didn’t get any. All gone when I got there. No big deal. You know me and fancy wine. Give me a cognac any day. But let’s talk Fred, what the hell was that all about?”

  “I'm really sorry Art. I expected that there would still be some for you to try. I would have come over to get you if I thought it would run out.”

  “I'm not talking about wine. I'm talking about yo
ur little speech.”

  “What do you mean 'little'?” Was it too short? Should I have thanked more people for coming?”

  “No, Fred. It wasn't too short. It was too long. As soon as you opened your mouth it was too long. How about 'Thanks for coming.' and sitting down. You had to go and destroy everything that your lawyers have done for you. Greenberg…and me. That line, 'I am truly sorry for what I have done.' That apology has blown your case out of the water.”

  “But I am sorry.”

  “I'm really moved by that fact, Fred, but for God sake, keep that information to yourself and maybe to your wife and kids and lawyers. Don't go blabbing to the world.”

  “Everybody here is a friend of mine. Nobody is going to tell anyone else. The word isn't going to get out.”

  “Are you nuts? Is your brain damage coming back? There are forty people out there and you don't think that they are going to talk to their friends about your admission to the most publicized crime in San Francisco since Dan White shot the mayor and Harvey Milk? Just read the papers next week - you are going to be playing a major role in the society section once again.”

  “I'm sorry, Art. I didn't mean to blow up your case.”

  “Don't be a jerk. I'm not worried about myself. I don't want to see my good buddy go to prison. I want him here for poker games.”

  “I am not going to go to jail. It would kill me.”

  “Yes, you've told me that before - a million times.”

  “And don't tell me that my brain damage is coming back. My brain is just fine, thank you.”

  “It's me that's sorry this time. I shouldn't have said that.”

  “So should I go downstairs and tell everybody that I didn't mean what I said?”

  “No, God no. It's bad enough as it is. Don't compound it.”

  “You know something Schofield? You are a real schmuck.”

  “And why am I a schmuck, my dear friend?”

  “I don't know. You just are. But I love you anyway.” For the first time in the more than sixty years that they’d known each other, they hugged.

  Schofield rejoined the party and Klein went down to the wine cellar, where he extracted another bottle of d’Yquem from the refrigerator - not a 1921 but a 1955 - after the 21, one of the great vintages of the 20th century.

  A FUNERAL

  Jacob Ross of Russian Hill died. Father of two and grandfather of four, he passed away after a prolonged bout with chronic leukemia at the age of 81. His funeral was to take place at Temple Emanuel the following day. For decades, Ross had been the Klein family CPA.

  Ross was the first in Fred's poker game to depart from his earthly existence. It was a resilient group. Of the original seven that had started dealing more than thirty years earlier, prior to Ross, only two stopped coming to the low stakes, high energy, and gastronomically plebeian game. Ed, 77, a retired shoe-monger, went to Arizona to be with his son after his wife succumbed to a stroke, and Ernie, 85, whose true profession was never clear, became so demented that his colleagues were no longer willing to take his money.

  Fred learned of Accountant Ross’s passing from Art Schofield. No chance that he'd not go to the funeral. The only time he had set foot in a synagogue since Barbara's death and funeral was for the funerals of others. In one's 70s, funerals become a standard and not entirely depressing social occasion. Their frequency goes up in the 80s, declining the following decade as the number of friends and associates eligible for such an event rapidly diminishes.

  “You willing to go with me, dear?” he asked of his young wife.

  “Of course,” she responded. She was not about to let him go alone.

  “How about you, Jason?”

  The son, fervently agnostic with little contact with Judaism since his Bar Mitzvah, was surprised to hear the request. But recognizing that the improvement of his relationship with his father, seemingly strong for the first time in years, was fragile, he responded, “I'd be glad to, Dad. And, I bet that Rebecca would come with us. She knows her way around a shul.”

  The following day, half an hour before the service was scheduled to begin, they showed up at the Temple, a massive red domed structure that would have seemed more appropriate in Istanbul than in San Francisco. Fred insisted that they use the Prius even though the back seat was not as commodious as that of his wife's car. He wanted to be sure that his high-flying co-mourners saw his green side.

  CPAs tend to have smaller turn outs at their funerals than do doctors, lawyers, politicians, and Indian chiefs. Though Ross was well known in the trade and by a group of friends, most of whom played cards, his event was not likely to put a dent in the massive sanctuary, so those who figured out such things scheduled his in a side room with a capacity well under one hundred.

  The Klein party of four was among the first to arrive and took seats in the third row on the aisle. Fred, as was his wont, insisted on an aisle seat. He blamed his need on arthritic knees but his actual motivation was the chance of seeing, being seen by, and pressing the flesh with important people attending the same event. The two women sat to his immediate right and Jason occupied the fourth seat in.

  Reform funerals are not very long -- a few prayers, centering on the Mourner's Kaddish, some singing of hymns, a rabbinical statement summarizing the positive accomplishments of the deceased while ignoring the negatives, and, occasionally, words from family and friends, usually engendering laughter rather than tears. During the service itself, Fred looked right and was thrilled to see Rebecca reciting the prayers and singing the hymns not only in English but in Hebrew, without looking at her prayer book. “Please God, make him marry her.” He reckoned that a prayer in this particular holy place couldn't hurt. Neither he nor his son was in any way religious, but it would be a whole lot better than Emily and her nasty parents.

  The event was finished in less than an hour and the mourners filed out, back to front. As Fred stood from the plain wooden pew, his knees buckled and his head filled with clouds. He attempted to resume his seated position but failed, falling to the carpeted aisle in slow motion. Jennifer had the presence of mind to cushion the back of his head to prevent another Eddy Street bar scene. “Help me!” she yelled.

  It is a rare Jewish transitional event in which there is not a near-minion from the medical profession. Ross’s funeral was no exception. Within seconds of Jennifer's plea, three doctors, average age 77, were at the fallen man's side. Not one of them had an active medical license. One, a dermatologist, started CPR, including mouth to mouth, before collecting data as to the nature of the episode. “Wait, Nate,” yelled the youngest of the three, an internist. He put two fingers on the patient's neck. “He's got a pulse! Slow - about sixty - but strong. And, he's breathing. Stop the CPR.” Nate ceased the compressions and the breaths.

  The third doctor, an octogenarian psychiatrist, recognized that he didn't know much about such matters, but did remember that when somebody faints, his legs should be elevated above the heart. He correctly assumed that a faint was the diagnosis of the man lying on the ground. He had learned of Fred’s identify before the service when he came into the room and was told by his daughter that the man shaking everybody's hand was the infamous mother-killer of California Street. “Get some pillows!” he ordered to no one in particular, not having any idea where one finds pillows in a synagogue.

  “I don't think we're going to need any pillows. He's waking up,” said the internist. Fred had been supine for less than two minutes.

  “What happened to me?” He looked around at the gathered seniors, his trophy wife, his son and Rebecca and immediately remembered where he was and why he was there. “Shit, I fainted. I knew it was going to happen.”

  “Watch your language Dad. You’re in a house of the Lord.”

  “God dammit! It's those shitty piss pills. Every time I stand up, I get dizzy.” Rebecca, embarrassed, stepped away from the group.

  “Can I get up?” he asked the internist who seemed to be in charge of the medical attendees.


  “Yeah, you can. But do it slowly and let us help you.” Fred followed instructions and took a few hesitant steps in the direction of the lobby before regaining his usual brisk, elderly stride. As he was walking, the sound of an ambulance was increasingly audible.

  “He’s over there!” somebody yelled at the two EMTs, both females in their early twenties dressed all in blue, who cantered into Emanuel's lobby. The 911 people had received four calls from cell phones describing, in four wildly divergent ways, the man down in the synagogue.

  Caller A - There’s blood all over

  Caller B - He’s awake but his wife is hysterical

  Caller C - I think he’s dead

  Caller D - He doesn’t look Jewish

  “Who’s the patient?” They saw nobody in obvious distress, let alone someone on the floor.

  “That guy without the yarmulke. The one with the two young women,” offered an old man.

  “Sir, how are you doing?” the thin one of the two asked of Klein.

  “Just fine. Why don’t you just go on back to where you came from? I don't need an ambulance.”

  “Let's just check you over. We heard that you fell and were unconscious. Please sit down. Go get that chair!” the thin one said to the stouter, younger one.

  “Get his vitals!”

  “BP 100 over 60. Pulse 60 and regular.”

  “Sir, those are pretty low numbers for a man of your age.”

  “How do you know how old I am?”

  “Just guessing, Sir. Figure you to be about 80?” In the first class of any health-related school, be it school for doctors, nurses, dentists, chiropractors, acupuncturists or reflexologists, the student is warned never to guess too high for an adult, too low for a child. You think the lady is 65, say 55. And a child looking 4 should be told you think he's 6. The flip-over point is about 22.

  “You got that wrong, Miss. I'm 77.”

  “Still, Sir, those readings are pretty low. I think we'd better take you to the hospital and let them check you out. Who knows, you may have had a heart attack. You may need a pacemaker.”